April 9

April 9th 2002

Woke at 9am. Went out for breakfast then read till it's time to go. The taxi turned up about an hour late and a nice French couple and their daughter joined us. We head for Ban Kwan Chang, a hair- raisingly mad journey as the driver overtakes everything is sight, regardless of sharp bends, steep hills or the traffic that is coming the opposite way. We hang on like grim death, all gesturing hopes of safe arrival at our destination.

The interpreter has a chat with us on arrival. She tells us about the 3 females we will be trekking with - Noi, who is 50 years old, Ginola is 15, and Ghandi is 19. She tells us about their eating habits, their habitat and that they are generally brought up by and with their keepers - it should be a life time partnership. There is a male elephant here too, she says - but he is mad and is kept away from the public and the other elephants!

The keepers round up our elephants and saddle them up with the baskets we will sit on. Unlike the baskets in Cambodia these have no bar across you to hold you in. We are given Noi and climb aboard, " Huah Noi" the keeper says, this is her signal to start walking. She does not want to take us and tries really hard to turn back and go home. When that fails she decides to ignore us all and eat some banana leaves instead, maybe we'll go away? Finally she gives up and with a sigh she breaks into a trot down the steep slope to catch up with the others. I cling on to the back of the basket as my bum heads rapidly forward, my legs are dangling behind her ear. She slows as we reach the others, "Huah Noi" Atuk our keeper calls from the top of her head where he perches.

The other keepers join in the chorus but Noi has decided it's time for a break, Atuk tries hard to shift her and eventually she moves forward again. The trek through the jungle is steep and rocky, we move at a leisurely pace, the elephants stop where ever they want for a few bamboo trunks, perhaps a banana tree or some long grass. At the river they all stop to cool themselves, trunks full of water are blithely showered on to their backs, when they are soaked through and we are too, we continue.

Ginola has a good sense of humour, you can practically see her laughing as she sprays all of us. Suddenly from behind there is a noise resembling a waterfall, Noi has stopped for a pee. "Chang beer!" Atuk calls, laughing. {The Chang label is 2 elephants facing each other}

About half way through our trek Atuk asks Andrew if he would like to take over. Atuk climbed down from Noi's head and Andrew slid off the basket on to her neck "Huah Noi" said Andrew, and eventually she did. Atuk asked if we wanted him to take a photo of us, he was fascinated that he could see the results, so took another one. We stopped for more elephant snacks on our way back. When we arrived back at camp Ginola "shook" trunks with me to say goodbye. They were unharnessed and came down to be fed some bananas - they took them very gently from us. Noi ate 4 at a time, Ginola was very lady like and accepted one at a time. Bizarrely there is a burgundy pedestal basin plumbed with cold water standing behind us in the jungle! We wash elephant snot off our hands and sit down to drink a coconut each and eat some fresh fruit we've been given to refresh us, we are asked to write our comments and sign the visitors book.

After this it's bath time. We follow the elephant's down to the river for a hilarious half hour, Ginola is straight in there she obviously loves the water, as we noticed earlier. She lies down, spraying herself then rolls around letting her keeper wash her. Ghandi gets in too and rolls around playing then lies propped against a rock letting her keeper scrub her. Noi gets in last, she sits and sprays herself, but won't lie down. She is first out and walks straight towards me heading to a fresh water stream for a drink. Ghandi climbs out next and follows her keeper back up the hill. Ginola is still playing and really wants to stay longer, you can see the pleasure on her face, she is lovely! She obeys her keeper and heads for home. We stop as they pass our taxi, the keepers all wave and call goodbye to us. Ginola waves her trunk. A truly wonderful afternoon, I'll never forget it. We climb into our taxi for an equally crazy return journey. Back at base we drink a coconut shake then go to shower and change and reluctantly pack to leave.

We break to sit on the beach to watch our last sunset at Koh Chang, it is a particularly stunning one. In the afterglow I walk out to sea, to pan round the Island, even the sea is pink tonight, this place is so beautiful, I could stay here forever.

I finish packing, then we go for dinner, sweet and sour squid and vegetable kebabs and our last Lemon Daiquiri, and Chi chi at Dao's. We walk to Porn, where else would we spend our last evening? We can hear B B King as we approach. Blue Bave's, Margarita's and Special Porn shooters. We listen to Manu Chua - cool cd, someone asks what he looks like, our Rasta says "He look like me!" We say good bye to the lovely barmen at Porn. We will both miss this place, we agree that it is the best bar that either of us have been to. Walk back along the beach and fell down a hole, jolted back horribly, Andrew hurt his too, we found the torch and continued - no more holes!